A utility provider, such as a gas, electricity, or water provider, may have a large number of control, measuring, and sensing devices installed in the field in order to control transmission and distribution of the product, measure, and record product usage, and detect problems. Such devices may include water, gas, or electrical meters, remotely controlled valves, flow nodes, leak detection devices, and the like. Utility meters may include wireless communication capability to send and receive wireless communications with a remote communication device, enabling remote reading of meters.
Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), Automatic Meter Reading (AMR), and Advanced Metering Management (AMM) are systems that measure, collect, and analyze utility data using advanced metering devices such as water meters, gas meters, and electricity meters. A typical AMI network may include thousands of nodes. A “node” as used herein may refer to either a composite device in a network capable of performing a specific function or a communication module connected to such a device and configured to provide communications for the device. The AMI network also includes a device known as a repeater, which receives a signal from a central network device, such as a hub, and that regenerates the signal for distribution to other network devices. Nodes and some repeaters are powered by direct current, supplied by batteries (DC powered), while other repeaters are alternating-current (AC) powered. Because of the remote placement nature of the nodes and associated devices, it is desirable to maximize a battery life of the nodes and associated devices in order to reduce down time and to reduce the amount of maintenance that must be performed on the nodes. While the battery powering a repeater is frequently more powerful than that of a node, maximizing battery life in a DC repeater is likewise desirable.